City of Brass

Genre: First-Person Action / Roguelike

Players: 1

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Review:

City of Brass is an Action game played in the first-person perspective, but instead of shooting enemies, you’re slashing them with a sword or stunning them with a whip. It is also a Roguelike, where the challenge level is high, and after each death, the levels, enemies, and bonuses are reshuffled.

Visually, the game looks and sounds good, although not especially impressive in any way. The enemies and levels all have a lot of personality to them that reflects their cursed Arabian nature, although as often happens in Roguelikes, they can get a bit repetitive.

As for the gameplay, the core gameplay here is actually pretty good. While this game isn’t technically a First-Person Shooter, it feels much like one, with the whip acting as a weak distance weapon with a limited range, and the ability to use it to grab loot and interact with objects from a distance is a really nice touch (no gyroscopic aiming, for those wondering).

The game’s Roguelike elements are a bit more of a mixed bag. There’s a lot of potential variety offered by differing power-ups, but players will be frustrated by immediately being offered power-ups they can’t afford, and frequently offered power-ups without any way of knowing just what they’ll do.

However, the thing that really holds this game back, in my mind, is the time limit, which pushes players to rush through the game’s levels rather than seeking out loot. This also has the result of making players more likely to stumble into traps, which inflates the game’s difficulty in ways that seem frustratingly avoidable – it’s one thing for me to die because I wasn’t observant enough to spot a trap before walking into it, and it’s another thing to be hounded by a timer that pushes me not to watch my step.

Still, the gameplay in City of Brass is good and fairly unique, if a bit repetitive, and those looking for a decent Action game on the Switch and who don’t mind a challenge might find it worth checking out.

tl;dr – City of Brass is a First-Person Action game with Roguelike elements that has you using a sword and whip to slash your way through enemies and try to avoid traps in a shifting ancient Arabian city. The core gameplay here is good, but the Roguelike elements can be a bit frustrating. Still, those who don’t mind a challenge might find this game worthwhile.

Grade: B-

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